3of8FOR METRO - Spurs' Manu Ginobili waves to fans as he makes his way through the Rivercenter lagoon during the parade Wednesday June 18, 2003. PHOTO BY EDWARD A. ORNELAS/STAFFPhoto: EDWARD A. ORNELAS, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

5of8Steve Kerr jumps into Manu Ginobili's arms after Kerr won his second title with the Spurs.Photo: Bahram Mark Sobhani / San Antonio Express-News

6of8The Spurs' Manu Ginobili celebrates his first NBA title with the rest of the team after defeating the Nets in Game 6 of the 2003 NBA Finals to capture the team's second championship title at the SBC Center.

7of8David Robinson and Manu Ginobili react during fourth quarter action in game six of the NBA Finals at SBC Center in San Antonio on Sunday, June 15, 2003.Photo: JERRY LARA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

8of8David Robinson and Manu Ginobili are all smiles near the end of a 2003 playoff game.Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News

June 18, 2003, was an emotional day for San Antonians.

Three days earlier, the Spurs had won their second NBA title, belatedly answering all naysayer insinuations that their 1999 championship had been a lockout-season fluke.

On a warm Wednesday evening, 300,000 Spurs fans congregated downtown for a river barge parade that set the stage for a celebratory blowout at the Alamodome.

There was a lot to process that day.

David Robinson, the Naval Academy grad who saved the franchise with his contract signing 16 years earlier, was retiring. Tim Duncan, the league’s most valuable player for both the regular season and the Finals, basked in “MVP” chants from the adoring crowd. Steve Kerr, the aging three-point specialist (and future Golden State Warriors coach), showed off the five rings he’d collected over his career.

Even with the festivities consistently riding a wave of mass euphoria, you could feel an electrical surge in the room when a 25-year-old rookie from Argentina named Manu Ginobili took the microphone and thanked the crowd in Spanish.

That moment offered early evidence of a mutual love affair between city and player that would stretch out over 16 seasons of triumph and heartbreak, including four titles and five Finals appearances. It’s a connection that continues even as Spurs fans grapple with Ginobili’s retirement announcement last Monday, at the age of 41.

In the pantheon of Spurs legends, Ginobili’s place is secure yet vaguely elusive.

Duncan has been the franchise’s greatest player. Robinson might be the most admired. And George “the Iceman” Gervin was certainly the most potent offensive force the team ever had.

Ginobili is simply the most beloved Spur.

That distinction is hard to quantify, in the sense that it’s always hard to apply metrics to the unpredictable whims of the human heart. But it’s true nonetheless.

Ginobili was a basketball daredevil, a whirligig who threw his body around the court with abandon. He never cared about statistics and accepted whatever role coach Gregg Popovich had in mind for him, even when it meant relinquishing his starting job to Hedo Turkoglu in 2004, to help Turkoglu find his confidence.

Ginobili had the highest winning percentage in NBA history for players with at least 1,000 games (.721). He also was a two-time All-Star and had seven straight years in which he averaged more than 15 points a game.

But numbers don’t do him justice. With Ginobili, we remember moments: the no-look passes, the baseline reverse layups, the slashing Euro-step moves, the left-handed dunks, the open-court steals, the wonderfully cheesy H-E-B commercials — and, on a memorable Halloween night at the AT&T Center, the midair swatting of a live bat.

He was a Latin American star in a city with a majority Latino population. He brought improvisational flair to a franchise known for its machine-like precision. And while Duncan often kept his competitive fury hidden under a mask of detachment, Ginobili’s red-hot emotions were on full display, at all times.

“I think the fact that he was Latino gave him an extra-special place in our hearts,” said Marisa Bono, a civil-rights attorney who is chief of policy for Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “After every game, he was the one speaking to Spanish-language media, hanging around until every last question was answered.

“I think his perseverance, his heart, it was very emblematic and probably reminiscent of the heroes that we have in our community. It’s that same spirit that makes San Antonio special.”

Richard Oliver, a former Express-News sports editor who currently serves as director of Partner & Community Relations for Visit San Antonio, calls Ginobili “the perfect player at the perfect time in the perfect city.”

Oliver confesses to a long-standing man-crush on Ginobili and says that over the years, whenever there was a lull or a boring stretch in a Spurs game, he made it a point to focus all his attention on Ginobili.

“He never took a play off,” Oliver said. “I don’t think he took a second off. I’ve never seen an athlete so engaged.”

Oliver marveled at the way local fans responded to Ginobili.

“I’ve seen him walk into restaurants and people always have the most warm reaction to him,” Oliver said. “And he’ll be there with a hand on the shoulder or a smile for them. He’s always in the moment.”

In his native Argentina, Ginobili was a Michael Jordan-esque demigod known as “Manusanta.” In San Antonio, his mythological status manifested itself on T-shirts, including one that superimposed his face on the beret-clad image of the late revolutionary Che Guevara and another that depicted him as Scarface.

For San Antonians, Ginobili was exotic yet familiar; down to earth, but larger than life.

He was such an original that even the compliments he generated tended to be off-kilter. At the end of his rookie year, Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum described him as a “squirrelly swingman.” SI’s Chris Ballard observed that Ginobili seemed “to be playing soccer on a basketball court.” TNT analyst Charles Barkley, an early admirer, responded to highlight clips by merely shouting, “GINOBILI!”

After a brilliant, 26-point Ginobili performance in Chicago in December 2003, Popovich gushed, “Manu is wacko. He has no fear. He goes full throttle all the time.”

Ginobili taught Popovich to loosen up and let him be the creative eccentric that he was. And Ginobili taught San Antonio to relish every gut-wrenching moment of drama and not just the victories that come from those moments.

Gilbert Garcia is a native of Brownsville, Texas, with more than 20 years experience writing for weekly and daily newspapers. A graduate of Harvard University, he has won awards for his reporting on music, sports, religion, and politics. He is the author of the 2012 book, "Reagan's Comeback: Four Weeks in Texas That Changed American Politics Forever," published by Trinity University Press. One of his feature stories also appeared in the national anthology, "Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001."